Six Feet Under
by swabloo
Summary: Dirt smeared into Ben's face, and a spider crawled up his nose. A worm wriggled through his hair, and god knows how many bugs were crawling through his clothes. Ben groaned as a big beetle bit him. It was all Alex's fault.


**A/N**: For peppymint, the first wish (sorry it's taken so long, but aghhh I've been busy)

Disclaimer: I own nada.

**Six Feet Under**

Ben, dirty and dishevelled, finally put the shovel down. He was heaving with sweat, anticipation, and worry; what if someone walked by? Heard what was going on? _Saw_ what he was doing?

One of his partners in crime gave a heave as the crowbar managed to pry the lid open, and as the wood cracked under the pressure, Fox found himself staring wearily into young brown eyes.

"Er… Sorry about all the trouble…" The boy in the coffin said, as if he hadn't just been trapped inside for twelve hours.

A light shone overhead, and all five of them quickly dropped to the ground, making as little noise as possible. Dirt smeared into Ben's face, and a spider crawled up his nose. A worm wriggled through his hair, and god knows how many bugs were crawling through his clothes. Ben groaned as a big beetle bit him. It was all Alex's fault.

* * *

The day hadn't started out so bad. In fact, it had been rather normal; or at least, as normal as it could possibly be, considering how Ben and Alex had just snuck onto a ship on foreign land.

As they crept into a darkened room, both resisted the urge to switch the lights on, hardly daring to alert anyone to their presence on board. They both hid behind what felt like a desk, and lay there unmoving until they felt the boat start, the gentle rocking rhythm bringing with it their sighs of relief.

"Seriously, Alex. You have the luck of the devil."

The blond boy in question just shrugged with a grin, although realized a moment too late that the gesture was rather fruitless in the dark room. They could see a little, but only enough to generally make out the shape of the room and the objects within it. "I'm just glad you went along with my plan. I _told _you I knew what I was doing."

Ben sighed. "Right. I'm _so_ sorry I _ever_ had second thoughts about letting a sixteen-year-old boy base-jump me across a sheer cliff. I'll never doubt the strength of those skinny, teenage arms that grabbed me for all of five seconds."

Alex shoved Ben in the shoulder. "I didn't drop you, did I?"

Ben huffed. "Don't get a big head. I felt your grip slipping."

"Well. It didn't, so there."

Just as Ben was about to retort with something equally as childish, the light in the corridor outside turned on, illuminating them through the door's window.

Ben cursed, and, quickly, assessing his surroundings, went for the only thing that would fit him – a dark mahogany wardrobe. As he scrambled inside and closed the door until there was only a slit of light peeking through, he saw Alex having the same thought – and leaping into what was on top of the desk. Ben – recognising the shape for what it was – felt a migraine building. What the hell? Seriously. There really must be something… _Wrong_ with that boy. And every situation he stumbled into.

It was a coffin, although it looked more like a roughly cut wooden box, just big enough for a teenager. Alex grabbed the lid from where it had been lying to the side, and shut it just in time. A moment later, two burly looking men walked in, looking around with frowns on their faces. They talked, the tallest man gesturing to his ears and the room in general – shit! Thought Ben. Had they heard them hiding?

The smaller of the two roved the room with his heavy-lidded gaze, but snorted and rolled his eyes, saying something in a rather patronizing manner. The taller man huffed, and sat down with a great heave onto the very coffin that Alex was hiding in.

The moment the man put all his weight on the object, a strange crack resounded in it. All of the people in the room froze, and the smaller man looked at the other in disbelief. He started berating the man, who had quickly risen to his feet, looking rather abashed. The smaller man ran his fingers through his hair, before sighing and shrugging as if saying 'Oh, well.' They left, locking the door behind them.

After waiting for two minutes to make sure they wouldn't come back (and thankful that they'd left the light outside on), Ben quickly got out of the wardrobe and reached the coffin. "Alex?" He asked, worried about what that noise had been.

"Yeah?" Came the muffled response. Thankfully, he didn't sound in pain.

Ben looked around, but couldn't find anything to open the coffin with. A sense of dread dawned on him, and he quickly whipped back around to the coffin. "Alex? You didn't close the lid properly, did you?"

The muffled voice scoffed. "Course not. It's a rickety old coffin – supposed to keep the weight of the earth on, right? I recognise the make, it'd probably stick together like cement. I'm not an idiot."

Ben heard shuffling, and a kind of banging against the lid. There was silence, before, "Err…"

Ben groaned. "When that guy sat on the lid, his weight pushed the lid too far in, didn't it?"

"Uh. Yeah. I think so."

"Shit," Ben said, looking around the room again. "Sorry Alex, but I know that make of coffin too. Nothing but a strong man behind a crowbar could get that lid off. I suppose we could blow it, but strangely enough, I don't quite find the idea of putting explosives by your head to be so good…"

Alex cursed. "We'll have to wait until we get to Denmark, won't we?"

"What? Denmark?"

"Duh. Didn't you recognise what language they were speaking in? They even talked about how 'Let's hope no one finds out what we did until after we get to Denmark. We'll pretend the body was already inside.' From what I've gathered, it's not uncommon for people to pay a little money under the table for these people to ship bodies already in the coffins, and get them buried in those unmarked graves, or slipping the body into an already scheduled ceremony – you know, so that anyone looking for the guy they killed is unlikely to want to disturb Mr. uncle Paul Whatsits or whatever. It, uh, gets rid of any 'evidence', I suppose."

"… You speak Danish?"

"Yep. But I don't think that's what you should be focusing on, Ben."

"… Right. Well, they locked the door, so I can't go out to find something to open up the coffin until after we land."

Alex sighed. "It's going to be a long few hours…"

**A Long Few Hours Later…**

Ben followed the crew as they left the boat. Damn, damn, damn… As soon as they'd arrived on shore, men had come into the room and carried the coffin out, and now Ben had to hope they didn't bury Alex alive. It just wasn't fair – they'd already finished their mission! Getting home was supposed to be the _easy_ part.

The men bundled the coffin into – wait, was that a funeral car? Quickly, Fox found a bicycle that was leaning against the nearest building and set off, hot on the heels of the car. Well, not right on the heels. That might have made it obvious he was following them.

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a church. Ben couldn't believe it – a graveyard? Already? Why did things have to be so _complicated_?

He tried to get on site after they'd taken in the coffin, but the man on the door wasn't allowing anyone in for another hour, not until the ceremony started. Ben was glad, at least, that he was still wearing his suit from the mission, and it didn't look too scuffed up – although, this looked to be a rather poor area of town, so he supposed making it look second hand (or third, or fourth…) was probably better.

He frowned, when he finished scoped out the area. This wasn't good. It looked like whoever had payed to get a "body" hidden away, wasn't any chances – rather unsubtle guards were standing around, hidden in the crowds and around the graveyard. Eavesdropping, he found out that they'd be hanging around for at least a week – double-checking for no problems was apparently the least they could do for their rather handsome wages (and Ben wondered if this would turn out into one of those unofficial missions that Alex seemed to snoop out and fall into more often than not).

He left then, and fished out the mobile phone that Smithers had given him before they'd left England. It was heavier than a usual phone, of course, for many reasons, but only one of those was important at the moment. Whilst it did contain a rather varied array of weapons, it also had an incredibly boosted signal that could reach England from the other side of the world, even if the nearest mast was half a country away.

Ben couldn't do this alone; there was too much opposition. He needed back-up, need a team – a unit – to help him subdue these guys and dig Alex up afterwards. He dialled, and was grateful when it answered on the second ring.

"Hello?" Came a gruff, no-nonsense voice on the other line.

"Hey, Wolf! Listen, I need a favor…"


End file.
